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Forum:Chapter 1A
---- Scarcely an hour later, Sulsaga had finally wrapped up his final errands and was returning to his study to gather his things. By now, most of the library was deserted save for the other few Master Librarians who still lingered, and their interns. Speaking of interns, his was busying herself with various things in her small desk by the door when he entered. He gave her his usual nod as he walked by, but she made no response, so preoccupied was she. A stern Master would have perhaps punished her for it, but Sulsaga gave no care to such rigid social notions. As he sat down at his own desk in the study, the door open, her rustling in the hallway became more and more intrusive. He sucked his teeth as he questioned Savenia with an annoyed tone. "Intern Savenia, what on earth are you doing over there? Is your desk infested with parchment flies again?" The last infestation ended up bloody, and he'd rather not have to Read another spell to destroy them. He still found parchment fly corpses in the pages of some of his more obscure novels. "No, Master - just excited for this weekend! I'm sooo tired." Her returning chime was indeed tired, but still kept her characteristic enthusiasm and bubbly volume. She had apparently mistaken his annoyance for genuine concern, a mistake he didn't bother to dispute. Eventually an idea reared itself in Sulsaga's head - why not get rid of two parchment flies with one astral arrow incantation? "Well then, Intern Savenia, I have a ticket to the Theater Verthandi. Mayhaps you'd like to go?" He smirked as the ceaseless rustling and banging in her desk stopped. She would leave and he would have this stupid ticket off his hands - a perfect ending to an otherwise productive night. Just a few more chapters of Vistaelus' prosperity and he would go to his apartment and rest. Savenia stood up, the knees of her tights gray with dust from the floor, and walked to Sulsaga's door. She didn't dare to enter his study without his permission, even after hours, a quality he appreciated as the two looked at each other. "M-master...Are... Are you inviting me to go to Theater Verthandi? ...With you?" One of Savenia's boots lifted up into the air and a blush flashed on her angular face. Now she wasn't making eye contact with Sulsaga anymore. "No. I only have one ticket." "...Oh." Her foot stomped back down and Savenia's brow knitted with some form of frustration. Sulsaga tilted his head slightly and Savenia noticed; the blush grew warmer, and she turned around and crossed her arms. "Hmph! Well in that case, Master -" she said his title with a surprising amount of scorn - "I have plans this entire weekend. Have a nice time at the Theater, with your books. Or whatever!" She left the study-way and roughly gathered her things from her desk as she did so. The ticket in question still sat in Sulsaga's outstretched hand, but now had no one to satisfy but its holder, and for the second time that day, Master Sulsaga was speechless in confusion. |time=03:37, October 12, 2013 (UTC)}} "Still you say you long for me?" The roar died like a flame doused with water. The audience fell to absolute silence. "Seven days you've lied to me...?" A cantadress sang the prelude to Lysithea's dying solo, pitiful in the puddle of her overturned barrel. Jewel-like sequin scales glittered with prismatic colors while the once rainbow fish tail she wore showed only worn, silky silver. The mermaid had little time to live. "What makes you man must be the blood tempted to sin, from the womb where you begin... as I was given life by the sea!" The strings and flutes began an elegy to the mournful throbbing of drums. While it was a new take on the traditional funeral marches of Granea, the melody was anything but somber. Fisherman Orbal charged from the left. His wide gestures and thunder-like voice sent a shaking through the halls. The choir became their army in this crucial scene. "Lysithea!" "Don't come near me, leave me be." "The heart that you've captured from me, I have lived," "You wretched scum! Go, begone!" "I'll earn riches, so please, wait and see!" "A single wave of the ocean is worth more than you'll ever receive." "Lysithea, come back to me." "Give it back to me!" The orchestra modulated to the next key and began a heated war with the choral staff. Powerful instrumental hits battled for dominance against wordless, vocalized chords. A cavalcade of dancers dressed as dark butterflies entered from stage left in a thin stream but poured out into a fan-like shape. They whirled in their acrobatics, filling the stage with the presence of death's servants. Lysithea and Orbal mouthed their exchange soundlessly in convincing mime, allowing the chorus and the rest of the stage to take the spectacle until their turn came around once more. But... it never did. A crack resounded through the whole of Theater Verthandi, so loud that it culled the circus-like atmosphere like a machete on a sickly calf's neck. The performers seemed hardly to notice. Miss Adelaide would sharpen an already razor-edged tongue on their faces if they stopped for just a sound. Did a stage effect mage falter somewhere? Or was it one of the giant fans up above that had gotten stuck and broken? It came from the very center of the stage, child-height fingers bursting through the wooden platform where a poor apprentice had been twirling moments ago. It tore apart the boards in a single thrust as if struggling to pull the rest of itself onto deck... whatever the rest of itself consisted of. The youngest butterfly dancers at seven to ten years of age screamed first. Then the audience followed suit and fled the stands in droves. Someone quick-witted took up a stage prop and slit Lysithea's mermaid tail costume so she could escape with everyone else. The only people not yet in panic were the orchestra and the choir who, facing the audience, couldn't see any of the chaos that was happening except reflected on the conductor's horrified face. He was an old, stubborn war veteran and continued to conduct, albeit at a rapidly increasing tempo, until the frantic song finally ended at four times the original speed. Only then did the musicians make a dash for the side doors in the orchestral pit. Already his human torso was visible as a finely-sculpted shield. Scarlet skin veined with glowing cerulean bloodstreams patterned his body like a tattoo. Medina's Kraken finally destroyed the last of the emptied stage. His shoulders rose and rose, pushing against the stone half-dome that cupped sound from the performance to the audience. Theater Verthandi was known for its deep, sturdy foundations. In but a handful of moments, he uprooted the entirety of the dome, its famous arch of fans still spinning, and threw its corpse onto the grass. Medina's Kraken groped at the sides of the theater. A strong set of nearly 20 squid-like tentacles propelled him forward on the walkway from stage to stands. It wasn't nearly large enough for him, he who could use the whole of Theater Verthandi as a large seat cushion. Each one of his tentacles ended in the eye-less head of a red-blue striped sea serpent with milky-white mouths and fangs as long as swords. With one bite, one snakehead took two men swallowed them whole . Medina's Kraken raised his eyes to the sky where the bright planet of Venetia shone gold in the East. Not all the howls of all of Granea's wolves could rival that single word he uttered. "LUUUUUUUUCIFEEEER!" The tracks of his seasnakes dug deep ditches through the theater. What bodies had failed to best divine selection lay crushed in those long, meandering graves.